Welcome to the RedState Weekly Briefing — where we take a quick look at the week’s most viewed stories in case you missed any of them. What do you suppose caught people’s attention in this latest whirlwind week? Grab a cup of coffee (or something stronger if you’re so inclined), and sit down with this 21st Century Weekend Edition of your favorite (online) publication — here we go!
#1 – ‘Hook, Line, and Sinker’: Trump Lays Trap for Democrats on Mamdani, and Hakeem Jeffries Takes the Bait — by Sister Toldjah
Jeffries, along with Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Gov. Kathy Hochul, have been the three New York Dems most asked about where they stand on Mamdani after refusing to endorse anyone in the primary race.
While all have talked about having to have “conversations” with Mamdani to gauge where he is on the Big Apple’s Jewish community, they’ve fallen short of backing him as the meetings (presumably) get added to their schedules.
But as he has done many times before, Trump recently put the bait out there on Mamdani, with the likely intent to see if any of these holdout Democrats would take it:
As President of the United States, I’m not going to let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York. Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards. I’ll save New York City, and make it “Hot” and “Great” again, just like I did with the Good Ol’ USA!
#2 – Jamie Raskin Is Going to Have a Tough Time Getting Off the Mat After This Trump Roundhouse — by Rusty Weiss
President Trump took to his Truth Social media platform to lambaste Raskin for not knowing what he was talking about regarding the bill, and really, in general.
And he did so in a style only the President could pull off with a hilarious takedown.
“Rep. Jamie Raskin, a third-rate Democrat politician, has no idea what is in our fantastic Tax Cut Bill, nor would he understand it if he did,” Trump wrote. “This DOPE has been consistently losing to me for YEARS, and I love watching his ugly face as he is forced to consistently concede DEFEAT TO TRUMP.”
“And tonight should be another of those nights,” he added, knowing the House is likely to vote on passage of the “big, beautiful bill” at some point tonight or early Thursday. “Raskin is a bad politician, and a TOTAL LOSER!”
#3 – ICE Drops Brilliant Statement on LA Mayor for Refusal to Work With Them, Then Stephen Miller Finishes Her — by Nick Arama
That seems like a perfectly reasonable question. If you think they’re going too hard, why not talk and work out parameters?
But the only parameter for Bass is that they go home and stop enforcing the law, showing it isn’t about going too hard or how they’re doing it, it’s that they’re enforcing the law at all. That’s ridiculous, but that’s where the Democrats are.
Of course, ICE is going to do its job on behalf of the American people, whether Democrats like Bass like it or not, even in the face of obstruction and threats. They responded with what Melugin termed a “blistering statement” that pokes at her for being out of the country during the L.A. fires.
#4 – New: CIA Assessment Reveals How Far Obama Administration Went to Frame Trump, Implicates Officials — by Bonchie
The CIA assessment went on to note that 13 of the 17 intelligence agencies were excluded from the report, with Brennan having “handpicked” the analysts who produced the ICA. The former Obama lackey also mandated that the discredited (then and now) “Steele Dossier” be included over the objections of the agency’s top Russia experts.
Brennan handpicked the CIA analysts to compile the ICA and involved only the ODNI, CIA, FBI and NSA, excluding 13 of the then-17 intelligence agencies.
He sidelined the National Intelligence Council and forced the inclusion of the discredited Steele dossier despite objections of the authors and senior CIA Russia experts, so as to push a false narrative that Russia secured Trump’s 2016 victory.
“This was Obama, Comey, Clapper and Brennan deciding ‘We’re going to screw Trump,’” said Ratcliffe in an exclusive interview.
“It was, ‘We’re going to create this and put the imprimatur of an IC assessment in a way that nobody can question it.’ They stamped it as Russian collusion and then classified it so nobody could see it.
In short, Obama personally ordered top officials to manufacture a pretense to destroy Trump’s presidency, and while they didn’t wholly succeed, there is no doubt he was severely hamstrung throughout his first term. To this day, the false claim that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election remains the predominant belief among Democrats. Of course, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey were more than willing to follow Obama’s order while sanctimoniously lecturing everyone else about respecting the very institutions they were bastardizing for political gain. Call it a soft coup or something else, but it was a direct attempt to undermine the votes of the American people.
#5 – Hot Takes: CNN Promotes Mamdani’s City-Owned Grocery Store Idea, Gets the Responses They Deserve — by Sister Toldjah
Not surprisingly, CNN’s Jake Tapper got in on the action as well, demanding New York Mayor Eric Adams, one of Mamdani’s general election opponents, prove his claims about Mamdani supporting Hamas in its war against Israel. Tapper clearly didn’t believe it, and doubted Adams could do it – until Adams dropped receipts.
As further evidence that the corporate press is rotten to the core, CNN is still at it, going to bat for Mamdani over his proposal to implement city-owned grocery stores if elected, trotting out the “experts” as though anyone trusts – or should trust – “experts” anymore these days:
“This is more common than people are aware of,” said Nevin Cohen, director of the City University of New York’s Urban Food Policy Institute. “There’s a wide spectrum of food retail establishments that could be created by or with the support of city government.”
[…]
But Errol Schweizer, a veteran of the grocery industry who publishes the newsletter “The Checkout Grocery Update” and has written in support of a public grocery sector, said Mamdani’s proposal would address a failing in the market. Government-owned grocery stores would not compete directly with bodegas and convenience stores, which typically do not sell fresh produce and meat.
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